Parry's rabbitbrush is a diminutive shrub with white-woolly stems growing to 16" tall from 7000' to 9000' in desert mountains and the San Bernardinos, often under pines. Older stems sometimes lose the tomentum in patches.  The alternate leaves are 2-4 cm long, linear to 1/8" wide, up to 1-1/2" long, green and somewhat rough-glandular. The inflorescence is a short spike or raceme with a few 5-10-flowered heads.  Its involucres are 7/16" to 9/16" high, with whitish or straw-colored phyllaries that are glandular-puberulent, straight or spreading, weakly-ranked and ± membranous with green tips.  Parry's rabbitbrush like other rabbitbrushes is an autumn bloomer.  There is another subspecies in the San Bernardinos, ssp. imulus, with gray herbage and 11-
15-flowered heads that the Jepson Manual suggests may be only an extreme form of ssp. aspera.  The third picture shows a plant with a 6" ruler for scale.  These pictures were taken in the Barton Flats area in late September.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Ericameria  2) parryi  3) aspera.
Pronunciation: er-ik-a-MER-ee-a PARE-ee-eye AS-per-a.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.